Four Israeli soldiers were killed in an apparent ambush in Rafah

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that four Israeli soldiers were killed and several others wounded after militants blew up a building where troops were operating in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Some of the soldiers were in critical condition after Monday’s attack, the military said. Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, said five soldiers were hospitalized and two were in intensive care.

The Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said in a statement that they had rigged the building in which the soldiers were operating. “Our fighters managed to blow up a house rigged with explosives in which Zionist forces were holed up,” it said.

The apparent ambush targeted an Israeli reconnaissance unit that was scouting an area the soldiers believed to be a tunnel shaft in a three-story building, Kan said. Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip are focusing on destroying tunnels used by Hamas fighters.

According to the militant group and the Israeli military, Hamas forces attacked with mortar fire after the bombs detonated while Israeli forces attempted to evacuate the dead and injured.

Fighting has been raging in Rafah since early May, after Israeli soldiers entered the southern city despite strong opposition from the international community. For months, Rafah had been home to more than half of Gaza’s residents. Israeli forces had ordered people to seek shelter there from the fighting in other parts of the area.

Since the Israeli invasion of Rafah, many displaced Palestinians have fled to central Gaza, which has seen clashes and heavy bombing since the announcement of new Israeli military operations last week. On Saturday, more than 200 Gazans were killed in an Israeli military operation in the central town of Nuseirat, which resulted in the freeing of four Israeli hostages, according to health authorities.

In the eight months since the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, a total of 298 Israeli soldiers have been killed, according to the Israeli military. The death toll for the population of the Gaza Strip is many times higher: local health authorities speak of over 36,000 dead, although this figure does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

Myra Noveck contributed to the reporting.